1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical disc player, and more particularly, to an optical disc player including a disc determining device for selectively determining the size (8 cm or 12 cm) of an optical disc loaded therein, a disc chucking device for chucking the optical disc, loaded in the optical disc player, in the horizontal direction, and a disc chucking lever for driving the disc determining device to be associated with the disc chucking device, performing stable determination and chucking of the optical disc, and enabling the optical disc player to be thin.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, an optical disc player includes a disc determining device for automatically determining types of recoding media, in which information is recorded by the same method, and which are categorized into an 8 cm disc and a 12 cm disc according to their sizes and reproducing the determined recoding media, and a disc chucking device for chucking (clamping) the optical disc loaded into to the optical disc player by a disc loading device.
The conventional optical disc player structured as described above will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings as follows.
FIG. 1 is a perspective view illustrating a disc determining device of a conventional optical disc player, FIG. 2 is a side sectional view illustrating a disc chucking device of the conventional optical disc player, and FIG. 3 is a side sectional view illustrating operation of the disc chucking device of the conventional optical disc player.
Firstly, as shown in FIG. 1, the conventional optical disc player 100 includes a main substrate 101 installed at the lower side of the conventional optical disc player 100, an auxiliary substrate 102 installed at the upper side of the conventional optical disc player 100, light emitting parts 104 and 105 installed at different positions on the main substrate 101, and light receiving parts 106 and 107 installed on the main substrate 101 to correspond to the light emitting parts 104 and 105.
Signals transmitted from the light emitting parts 104 and 105 are interrupted by an inserted optical disc and the light receiving parts 106 and 107 cannot receive the signals so that the insertion of the optical disc is detected and the size of the optical disc is also detected. Thus, the loading of a recoding medium is initiated and the size of the recording medium is determined.
In the recording medium detection method as described above, when the optical disc as a recoding medium is inserted into the conventional optical disc player, the insertion of the optical disc is detected by whether the light receiving parts receive the light beams transmitted from the light emitting parts or not. When all the light beams, to be received by the two light receiving parts, are interrupted by the optical disc, the inserted optical disc is determined to be a general size optical disc, that is, a 12 cm optical disc. Meanwhile, when the light beam transmitted from the outer light emitting part is not received by the light receiving parts, the optical disc is determined to be a compact recording medium, that is, an 8 cm recording medium.
As shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, the disc chucking device of the conventional optical disc player 100 includes a turntable 300 coupled with a rotation shaft 210 of a spindle motor 200, a clamp 400 coupled with the upper end of the turntable 300, a plate spring 500 for elastically supporting the clamp 400, an electromagnet 600 for pulling the clamp 400 using the electromagnetic force and coupling the clamp 400 to the turntable 300, and a clamp controller 700 for controlling the electromagnet 600.
The lower side of the turntable 300 is coupled with a rotation shaft 341 of a spindle motor 340, installed on an electric circuit board 320, and a disc loading part 360, on which an optical disc D is loaded, is formed in the upper side of the turntable 300. The clamp 400 has a coupling groove formed in the lower side thereof and coupled with the disc loading part 360 of the turntable 300 to chuck the optical disc D loaded on the disc loading part 360, is made of steel, and is upwardly spaced apart from the disc loading part 360 of the turntable 300 by a predetermined distance due to a plate spring 500.
The plate spring 500 provides elastic force to the clamp 400 such that the clamp 400 is upwardly spaced apart from the disc loading part 360 by the predetermined distance, and has an end fixed to a support plate 520 by a bolt B and the other end rotatably coupled with the upper end of the clamp 400 by a rotation connecting member 540.
The electromagnet 600 is installed around the rotation shaft 341 of the spindle motor 340, and pulls the clamp 400 using magnetic force generated due to electric power supplied from the clamp controller 700 and couples the clamp 400 to the disc loading part 360 of the turntable 300. The electromagnet 600 includes a cylindrical iron core 610, fitted around a cylindrical coupling protrusion 342 protruded from the upper side of a body of the spindle motor 340, and a coil 620 wound around the outer circumference of the iron core 610. Thus, the electromagnet 600 generates a uniform magnetic field about the rotation shaft 341 of the spindle motor 340 so that the clamp 400 closely contacts the disc loading part 360 of the turntable 300, and the iron core 610 is strongly magnetized by the magnetic field generated by the coil 620 so that the magnetic field of the electromagnet 600 becomes stronger.
The iron core 610 has separation preventing grooves 611 formed in the inner circumference thereof, and separation preventing steps 343 formed in the upper outer circumference of the coupling protrusion 342 are inserted into the separation grooves 611. The clamp controller 700 controls the electromagnet 600 by supplying electric power to the electromagnet 600 so that the disc loading part 360 of the turntable 300 is coupled with or separated from the clamp 400.
However, as shown in FIG. 1, when the optical disc is inserted into or ejected from the optical disc player, since inserting time, ejecting position, and reinsertion of the optical disc are not effectively performed, manufacturing costs are increased and workability is inferior.
Meanwhile, as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, according to the chucking device of the optical disc player, since the chuck is elastically supported by the plate spring to chuck the optical disc, a sufficient space for vertical movement of the chuck is required. Thus, a thin optical disc player cannot be manufactured.